Fox

Clever, quiet, and endlessly curious, the fox has become a small yet iconic creature of the Wild West. By the day, they are shy, yet they sure leave enough tracks and signs for a keen tracker to notice.

Away in the American Frontier, several species of fox traverse the land, the Red Fox and the Gray fox being the most common ones. Red Foxes can be readily distinguishable from any fox because of their rusty hue; bushy tails with a white tip and black legs. The Gray Fox is a little smaller and more furtive; a strange mixture of silver, black, and white, it is among those rare canines that can climb trees!

These very intelligent and cunning creatures range from swallowing berries to munching on insects to going after small animals or birds, or any leftovers of settlers. They prefer to make their dens in hollow logs from within burrows to discreet nooks in the rocky hillside of the frontier.

In folklore and Indigenous narratives, the fox is a symbol of cleverness and adaptability, and these are exactly the traits that a fox exhibits in the wild. There are wonderful survivors that disappear into a cloud of dust by using brains rather than brawn.

Foxes don't present much of a pest problem for livestock, but they certainly will invade hen houses if given an opportunity - sometimes causing equal measures of admiration from ranchers. Spotting a fox is an inexplicable thrill, a reminder of the multitude of watchful eyes hiding in the grasses and in the shadows of the West.